[lentulusgracchus]

Sherman's [*spit*] purpose was to spread the tyranny of his union cult and his attacks on civilians had no direct military value - were illegal per two Supreme Court decision prior to the war, and did not serve to save lives in the long run. He waged a war like bin Laden - against CIVILIANS, not military targets.

I second that. I'm unaware of any situation in the Second World War in which Eisenhower ordered attacks on civilians. The air war was another story, but at least the American raids had legitimate targets, like the notorious ball-bearing factory at Schweinfurt and the refineries around Ploesti. The British night raids were more problematic, but even at night the British made attempts to target, using visual references and the "H2S" black boxes, and in any case they resorted to night raiding (as had the Germans) because of their casualty experience in attempting daylight raids.

Deliberate savaging of civilian targets was something more typical of the German side (Rotterdam, London, the V-weapon offensives, the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau's gratuitous shelling of Deal during their Channel breakout, Ouradour, Lidice, half a hundred Polish and Russian towns).

However, any fairminded person would have to admit that Sherman's march to the sea did adumbrate this kind of warfare, which had no precedent since the Thirty Years' War, or even the Hundred Years' War.

[#3Fan]

I second that. I'm unaware of any situation in the Second World War in which Eisenhower ordered attacks on civilians. The air war was another story, but at least the American raids had legitimate targets, like the notorious ball-bearing factory at Schweinfurt and the refineries around Ploesti. The British night raids were more problematic, but even at night the British made attempts to target, using visual references and the "H2S" black boxes, and in any case they resorted to night raiding (as had the Germans) because of their casualty experience in attempting daylight raids.

Hundreds of thousands of German ghosts may disagree.

Deliberate savaging of civilian targets was something more typical of the German side (Rotterdam, London, the V-weapon offensives, the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau's gratuitous shelling of Deal during their Channel breakout, Ouradour, Lidice, half a hundred Polish and Russian towns). However, any fairminded person would have to admit that Sherman's march to the sea did adumbrate this kind of warfare, which had no precedent since the Thirty Years' War, or even the Hundred Years' War.

What about what the British did to the highlanders?